Thirteen Days quotes

View Quote Anotoly Dobrynin: [to Robert Kennedy] You're a good man; your brother is a good man. I assure you there are other good men. Let us hope the will of good men is enough to counter the terrible strength of this thing that was put in motion.

View Quote Dean Acheson: Gentlemen, for the last fifteen years, I've fought at this table alongside your predecessors in the struggle against the Soviet. Now I do not wish to seem melodramatic, but I do wish to impress upon you a lesson I learned with bitter tears and great sacrifice. The Soviet understands only one language: action. Respects only one word: force.

View Quote Dean Acheson: Let's hope appeasement doesn't run in families. I fear weakness does.

View Quote Dean Rusk: [Soviet ships turn away from the U.S. blockade of Cuba] We were eyeball to eyeball and I think the other fella just blinked.

View Quote White House Operator Margaret: What the crap is going on today?

View Quote Dean Acheson: What happened in there?
Gen. Maxwell Taylor: I thought he was going to give us his decision.
McGeorge Bundy: Look, I know them. They just need to make sure there's no other way. They'll get there.
Dean Acheson: Remember, the Kennedys' father was one of the architects of Munich. There's only one responsible choice here. So, let's hope appeasement doesn't run in families. I fear weakness does.

View Quote Gen. Curtis LeMay: You're in a pretty bad fix, Mr. President.
President Kennedy: :[wonders at remark and looks back at LeMay] What did you say?
Gen. Curtis LeMay: You're in a pretty bad fix.
President Kennedy: Well, maybe you haven't you noticed you're in it with me.

View Quote Helen O'Donnell: And while you're under a rock somewhere with the President, what am I supposed to do with our five children, Kenny?
Kenny O'Donnell: Honey, we're not going to let it come to that, I promise. Jack and Bobby, they're smart guys.
Helen O'Donnell: You're smart, too.
Kenny O'Donnell: Not like them.

View Quote Kenny O'Donnell: I got a bad feeling about what's going on in there!
President Kennedy: In the morning I'm taking charge of the blockade from the situation room and MacNamara is gonna set up shop at the flagpot at the Pentagon and keep an eye on things there.
Kenny O'Donnell: Good. Because you've got armed boarders climbing onto Soviet ships, and shots being fired across bows!
President Kennedy: I know. I know.
Kenny O'Donnell: Well, what about these low level flights?
President Kennedy: We need the flights.
Kenny O'Donnell: They're starting them when?
President Kennedy: An hour.
Kenny O'Donnell: An hour. You realise what you're getting yourself in for?
President Kennedy: Kenny, no, we need the flights, because the minute that first missile becomes operational we gotta go in there and destroy it.
Kenny O'Donnell: Fair enough. But Castro's on alert and we're flying attack planes over their sites, on the deck! There's no way for them to know we're carrying cameras not bombs.
President Kennedy: God damn it!
Kenny O'Donnell: They're gonna be shot at, plain and simple.

View Quote Kenny O'Donnell: The point is, you trade our missiles in Turkey for theirs in Cuba, they're gonna force us into trade after trade, until finally, a couple of months from now they demand something we won't trade, like Berlin, and we do end up in a war. Not to mention that long before that happens this administration will be politically dead.
Robert Kennedy: I don't care if this administration ends up in the freaking toilet! We don't do a deal tonight there won't be any administration.

View Quote Kenny O'Donnell: The president has instructed me to pass along an order to you. You are not to get shot down.
Commander William B. Ecker: Uh, we'll do our best sir.
Kenny O'Donnell: I don't think you understand me Commander. You are not to get shot down under any cir****stances. Whatever happens up there, you we're not shot at. Mechanical failures are fine, crashing into mountains fine. But you and your men are not to be shot at, fired at, or launched upon.
Commander William B. Ecker: Excuse me sir, what the hell is going on here?
Kenny O'Donnell: Commander, if you are fired upon, the President will forced to attack the sites that fire on you. He doesn't want to have to do that. It's very important that he doesn't, or things could very badly out of control.

View Quote Kenny O'Donnell: You know, the Joint Chiefs are gonna be upset if you mess with their chain of command.
President Kennedy: Well, you tell them that their chain of command leads up to one place - me.

View Quote Kenny O'Donnell: You sleeping?
President Kennedy: No, not much. I slept last night, though, you know, and, geez, when I woke up, somehow I'd forgotten that all this happened, you know? Then, of course, I remembered, and I just wished for a second that somebody else was President.
Kenny O'Donnell: You mean that?
President Kennedy: I said for a second.

View Quote McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor: Sunday morning, one of our U-2s took these pictures. The Soviets are putting medium-range, ballistic missiles into Cuba.
Arthur Lundhal: They appear to be the SS-4, range of a thousand miles, three-megaton nuclear warheads. Seen here in this year's May Day parade in Red Square.

View Quote President Kennedy: Acheson's scenario is unacceptable, and he's got more experience than anybody.
Kenny O'Donnell: There is no expert on the subject, there is no wise old man. There's... shit, there's just us.
President Kennedy: The thing is that Acheson's right. Talk alone's not gonna accomplish anything.
Kenny O'Donnell: Well, let's bomb the shit out of 'em! Everybody wants to. Even you, I mean, even me, right? It sure would feel good.